Touched
by impossiblesongs
Summary: "Doctor," Clara asks, "why don't you like to be touched?" – We found out why the Doctor is not a fan of hugs anymore, but perhaps it goes WAY deeper than just hugs. (one-shot)


_**Touched**_  
12/River, Clara Oswald

Summary: _"Doctor," Clara asks, "why don't you like to be touched?"_ – We found out why the Doctor is not a fan of hugs anymore, but perhaps it goes WAY deeper than just hugs.

**Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

**AN1:** _I swear, I was just speculating my observations/theories to my sister and she was the one who told me to write it all down and ruin your lives. Now I feel I should mention that I don't consider this Rose-bashing, as that was not my intention, but it's how you read it I suppose. Ultimately, that lies with your interpretation of it._

* * *

_Why don't you like hugging, Doctor?_

**_Never trust a hug. It's just a way to hide your face._**

\- Clara &amp; The Doctor, Doctor Who (Series 8, Episode 12)

* * *

"Doctor," Clara asks, "why don't you like to be touched?"

The question should leave a certain ringing in his ears, but instead it garners a silence louder than it had any right to be. A flicker of something passes through him, a marking. Hollow. Looking over at Clara he can see she's only curious, only trying to _understand_.

If the universe were tipping over, he'd feel it. He's the Doctor. His _personal_ universe, however, always had a very different making to it. A desperate, clinging thing it had come to be, with his last face. The Bowtie. All left over pieces of loves and losses, and all of it remaining to him only in tatters. Broken and wandering, he remained. Wishing for an end at every step forward, but it had been _his_. The remnants of the past hang under the makings of his flesh, allowing it to become easier to move on but no easier to forget. It burned into the man he had become.

There, of course, lying in the pile of the dead and the haunting, had been _her_. A woman. She had happened. To time and to him, but it was time that had gotten off easy. It only ever had to learn to contain her. To exist alongside her as she ran amuck, tearing at its guidelines, pushing against any boundary, any confine, if she so felt like it.

Time never had to lose her the very day it found her. Time had not just assumed it had no choice in the matter, or resented her for such a ridiculous assumption. It had never kept up the pretense that entrapment was the cause of its unrest, instead of admitting to the all-consuming cowardice by the naming of fear. Time had no notion of fear, nor did time have the audacity to ignore notice when all the running _from_ her was only ever running _to_ her.

Time had not fallen in love with her. It had not constantly prolonged the inevitability of accepting that love and allowing those feelings to pass aloud, not even to oneself. Not until it was on top of a pyramid, marrying her. Less for sense and more for emotions denied long enough. Time had not taken ages and a new face to fully acknowledge, finally, that it had chosen her willingly. There had been no coop, no trick or trap. Never had they simply been looped together or tied down to each other, he and River, and just because it already was so it should remain to be. Every single moment of their lives – from beginning right up to the very end – it had been about _choice_. Choices both parties made, in equal share and equal blame.

Time had neither learned, with heavy hearts and much too late, that it would choose her every single time. Time had not mourned her when it ultimately survived her. He did, he had. Does.

Most importantly, Time had not been _touched_ by her. Touched so deep, far past the skin, into whatever caverns lie in the making _of_. Of what he is and what he isn't and what he could be and what he shouldn't be. Touch than runs deeper than hugs or kisses, more intimate even than the acts and caresses made as husband and wife.

River had seen him, all of him, and she had reached for him anyway. Saved him, protected him, loved him – always and completely. Unconditionally and without hesitance. She had shaken him long before she'd ever laid a finger on him. It had been with a look. A look holding more intimacy than any touch ever could.

He remembers, at the Library, her going on at length, when she'd dragged him away and it was just the two of them. Obsessed with some kind of list, she was. Checking them off in her diary, or something. Babbling on and on about it. He had been too suspicious, too young, still processing that it was actually a _human_ archeologist who had sent the message out to his psychic paper, and how it had actually worked. That lasted until Professor Song had turned those eyes on him. _Proper_ attention, and he'd stilled. Pinned down, stripped.

"Look at you." River's eyes had widened, more than simple recognition lie there. The tiny gasp that had her lips parting shook him, suspended him in her presence, with no ideas as to how or why. Why her? Why did her eyes hold him so? And he, powerless to stop it.

"Oh, you're young." She'd muttered. To which he had only insisted quite the opposite. "No, but you are," she'd urged him. Conveying without words, but with affection. And all of her efforts fell onto deaf ears, to a face who did not know her, nor want to.

He remembers how she reached over then, with not one bit of restraint, and she'd pressed her warm palm gently against his skin to cup at his cheek. As if she'd done so a billion times over.

"Your eyes," River had gazed, her voice gone quiet and breathy with wonder. As if she were marveling at something beyond precious. Something wholly loved. "You're younger than I've ever seen you."

The intimacy in her touch had recoiled away instantly once she'd caught on yet her voice had turned pleading when she spoke to him, begged him.

_Please tell me you know who I am._

She really looked. Right into him, past the eyes and the face and all the rest. And she'd held him there, the _real_ him. The one hiding behind the face, parading about, young and clever. She saw him. It had been at that moment he knew there would be no hiding from River Song, and that prospect downright terrified him.

She pulled away from him, composing herself and shutting off whatever intimacy she had offered him. Something – some part of him – had followed her in wanting. And everything that followed that day, had proved exactly why.

He never had gotten those parts back.

The thing is, old as he is now, he had gained shadowed lands in his making. The parts inside of him he'd labeled off as 'exiled' would come to exist in every Him that followed. He made it a point to tuck those bits of him away, keeping such things hidden in an act to protect those around him. None more so than his Rose.

Rose Tyler. The girl in the shop. The one who'd loved him and brought him back, yes. He'd loved her in return, but he can hardly ignore how he'd gone and made himself into the man he had _wanted_ her to see. Rose never glimpsed at the desperation, the weariness, of one who's lived too long. Rose met him after the Time War, but he had only ever played the hero to her eyes. When it came to him, the Time Lord victorious would never have crossed her mind as _him_. She'd probably make excuses, his Rose. There was nothing ugly or dark in the Doctor, not to her.

Rose had never looked upon him as a wife might. It hadn't been Rose's fault. He'd made the effort to conceal who he truly was from her, so the fault lies with him in the end. As he'd said onto Clara once, he's made many mistakes. His wife, on the other hand, had not been so easily satisfied.

River, who'd kept both eyes open, unblinking and never opting to look the other way. Refusing to accept his attempts to shield her from the things he'd once shielded Rose. Those shadowed lands, the ones he'd marked off as forbidden? His wee psychopath would seek them out purposely and make herself a home there. In the most lifeless, monstrous parts of him, River would go and she would bloom something beautiful.

River never tried to fix him. She'd never even implied that he needed fixing (which is debatable, in truth). She used to make melodies from the depths of his darkness. She would be insistent on loving the monstrosity in him just as much as the goodness. And for those times that he was with her, his wife, he'd be as good a man as he wished he could be. Because _she_ believed he was, so for that moment he must have been.

River would be there, whether he wanted her there or not. Correction, _especially_ when he'd have preferred her not to be. Waiting and ready, because as it turns out, River always knew. So he'd tuck his face into the crook of her neck, hiding away from the world and himself, embraced as he was, safe. Protected by her arms and her love.

He'd make a home of her darkness, too. Together, they could blend. He can't remember ever having that before her. Hiding hadn't been such a bad thing in those days. In the arms of the one he trusted more than anyone or anything. It is simply a fact now that he will never find solace in River Song again. He would never know of her embrace or her touch and that woman damn near touched every nerve ending he had. There is not a big enough substance in the universe to make up for that. He knows, he's looked.

The Doctor, very much aware that Clara is still watching him, still waiting, licks his lips, and attempts to find the best way to make Clara understand what she can't possibly understand. River's words float up to him, unbidden. Words given to him when he was too young and foolishly ungrateful for the spoiler being handed over.

_I have a promise to live up to. You'll understand soon enough._

But soon enough came, and understand he did. Love was more than just an emotion. All it took was him dying to truly remember that.

"To make this short, as we have much to do in one day, I don't feel things the way I used to." He answers. "I can't… I'm simply not able to feel any of it."

Clara's brow wrinkles and her eyes start fleeting the more she ponders it, like a bloody pinball machine in live action. They are completely out of hand, those eyes of hers, but the Doctor holds his tongue.

"So, you mean," It's a relief when she finally opts for chewing her bottom lip while she makes her own conclusions, fully calculating her thoughts before daring to speak them aloud. He's almost grateful for it. "You mean can't feel touch? At all, like… not even mine? When I hug you or hold your hand, you don't feel any of that?"

The Doctor smirks, feeling much like this entire conversation his pointless, but he does not dismiss her or her conclusions. Clara will not appreciate it. Instead, he offers her a patient nod, as she's not terribly off on the situation.

"I'm not going into it entirely," he warns, "but it was something that happened while I was regenerating. I know when you hug me. I can feel the pressure of your arms pressing around me," the Doctor shrugs, motioning to her. "Same with your hand. But my reflexes are all working on memory now, mostly. There's no..." and he suffers to think of a word that will cover it, the complete _lack thereof_ that has become the sum of his experiences ever since regenerating. He decides on, "Nothing. There's no warmth. No depth. Just… nothing."

"Huh," huffs Clara.

She doesn't seem too put out by this information.

"Your hugs are nice, by the way." He hurries to add, just in case. "Really, really great hugs. The best."

The Doctor glares at her somewhat, eyes narrowing as he waits for some kind of sign that he's said or done the right thing. Surely this would be something considered a 'right thing'. The whole saying something not technically true because it sounds nice is what humans like to hear, isn't it?

A slow smile blossoms over Clara's face. She's throwing her arms around his neck before he can even stop her, hugging him to her nice and tight.

"You are _so_ bad at lying when it comes to compliments. Too monotone and dead scared of the outcome, you sound." she sighs happily against him, pulling back with an even bigger smile on her face. "But, going on how you don't really get a say over the whole hugging thing, please do us both a favor and shut up." She places a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks for trying anyway."

"Not a problem." He tries to mirror a smile back at her, nevertheless feeling like he's come up short. It doesn't seem to dim Clara's happiness in the least.

"Wait, does that mean," Clara stills, momentarily stumped. "What about pain? Can you still feel pain?"

"You never forget pain, Clara," he tells her, matter-of-fact. "Even if you can't feel it. Haven't you heard that saying, memories kill?"

She seems satisfied with that answer, and nods. Distance is once again placed between them as he pilots the Tardis.

He can breathe easier like this. Think freer, even. And so the Doctor lets his mind cloud over with memories and recollections of his dead wife. He recalls of River's hands and lips and hair and smile. Of her neck and how he'd hide his face there, the sound of her pulse beating at his ear. Of her heart and how big it was, and how he never deserved an ounce of her affections. He remembers of bowties he once loved and pain he no longer feels, not entirely, since he died on Trenzalore.

He thinks of Clara's hug, given to him just seconds ago, and frowns. It's not that it feels bad, not really. It is just more than slightly uncomfortable and only serves a reminder. Every single time.

If anyone dares to hug him, to touch him, he cannot feel in this body, with this face. There is only a startling disrupt of senses, of how this body lacks in comparison to his last. There comes with it a longing for the one touch he cannot have. He's left to combat with a dulled echo his memory provides for the sense he no longer truly possesses. And he knows exactly _why_. Why this regeneration has omitted his ability to feel as he once had.

Because it hurt. Because the touch would not, nor would it ever again be, from _her_.

* * *

**AN2**: _To be honest, I wasn't going to post this because it made me so damn sad. But here I am. I also maintain that this idea may be farfetched, it may not even work with canon, but it came to mind. The thought that Twelve doesn't like physical closeness because he literally can't feel it was just so devastating that I ran with it. Forgive me (if you can)._


End file.
